pretty young dumb thing

when i was 12, the mother of a friend told me very nicely that i should start using fair and lovely... I said no thanks....I don't think I ever felt bad about the way I looked until I came to engineering... Even then, I knew it was a passing phase and didn't bother too much...
yesterday, I read in newspapers that young girls (12 to 17) get their hands and legs waxed, get their eyebrows plucked and worry about their weight and shop for the latest fashion... here... in India...
I saw a little girl asking her mom for a princess dress in the mall...
when did things change so much??? I thought girls that age worried about boys and studies and books and stuff... not their looks!
I think the media plays a role too... all those air brushed celebrity pictures bombarding us all the time! And girls that age really get influenced quickly...
I worry about how it will be, when I have kids...
There's another thing that i see a lot... A lot of girls dumb themselves down in the work place, with their boy friends...I just hope that it's a passing phase.... I thought smart was in.... i seem out of touch with reality......
young girls are increasingly getting judged on what they have and what they look like rather than what they are or can become. I think that's just sad....
young girls have so many opportunities today and this negative trend might just reverse all that...
If I decide to have kids and my kid is a young girl, I hope I can teach her to be smart, ambitious and sensible and compassionate.... like my mom did....